A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

February 18, 2007

Liars. Scoundrels. Terrible businessmen. Discredited hacks. Watching the NAR implode at the same time housing implodes is quite poetic, wouldn't you say HP'ers?

I think the only ones still drinking their Kool-Aid are the rip-and-read MSM, and even many of them are starting to actually think before they write. Not all of 'em, but some. It's a start.

But here's the reporter at Realty Times allowing the NAR spinmeisters to serve more unfiltered Mountainberry Punch! Hey Kool-Aid!

NAR Says Existing Home Sales HaveHit Bottom

Despite wailing from banks that late or non-payments on sub-prime loans are sinking their profits, continuing fear from homebuyers that they're catching a falling knife, and predictions from housing analysts that the pain is far from over, the outlook looks sunny for housing, says the National Association of Realtors.

Analysts say that a number of causes kept buyers away including affordability, the financial media, rising gas prices, rising mortgage interest rates, and buyers' fear of becoming "the greater fool."

Housing bulls suggest that the drop in housing sales is primarily due to fear -- that housing fundamentals are actually better now than they were during record housing conditions.

David Lereah, NAR's chief economist, said it appears the fourth quarter was the bottom for the current housing cycle.

"This information confirms 2006 was the year of contraction, and hopefully the fourth quarter was the bottom of this current business cycle," he said. "Home sales are leveling at historically high levels, and examination of data within the quarter shows home prices stabilizing toward the end. When we get the figures for this spring, I expect to see a discernible improvement in both sales and prices."

NAR President Pat V. Combs: "Since the typical owner stays in a home for six years, it's more useful to look at the five-year comparison for metro area home prices -- most of them are seeing strong gains,"

16 comments:

Anonymous
said...

you can watch Lereah backstepping monthly if you read his quotes back to back from 05-07. I loved the 'cross my fingers' note in dec/jan - he has no incentive to make things look bad and he is probably very, very clueless on economics in general. in reality he's a paid promoter for the nar and anyone that expects good stats or logic out of this guy is....going to lose.

"Drinking the Kool-Aid"Contrary to popular belief, Kool-Aid was not used in the infamous punch at JonestownContrary to popular belief, Kool-Aid was not used in the infamous punch at Jonestown

The idiomatic expression "drinking the Kool-Aid" was originally a reference to the Merry Pranksters, a group of people associated with novelist Ken Kesey who in the early 1960s travelled around the United States and held events called "Acid Tests", where LSD-laced Kool-Aid was passed out to the public (LSD was legal at that time). Those who "drank the Kool-Aid" passed the "Acid Test." "Drinking the Kool-Aid" in that context meant accepting the LSD drug culture, and the Pranksters' "turned on" point of view. These events were described in Tom Wolfe's 1968 classic, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.[4]

It is also now closely associated with the 1978 cult mass-suicide/murder in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year, he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called the "Jonestown Massacre," a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid's relative obscurity versus the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) The precise expression can be attested in usage at least as early as 1987.[4]

One lasting legacy of the Jonestown tragedy is the saying, "Don't drink the Kool-Aid." This has come to mean, "Don’t trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side," or "Whatever they tell you, don't believe it too strongly."[1] The phrase can also be used in the opposite sense to indicate that one has blindly embraced a particular philosophy or perspective (a "Kool-Aid drinker", or, as a cynical response to a fanatical claim, "sounds like someone's been drinking the Kool-Aid!").

In technology circles "drinking the Kool-Aid" is often used to describe the misguided or over-abundant enthusiasm someone has for their product and it's capabilities.

Truly it is a testament to how bad modern-day journalists are at doing their jobs, that they continue to quote Lereah without any mention of his vested interests, nor his past "analyses", if you can call them that, nor the monotone (rosy) nature of his prognostications throughout recorded history. The MSM has completely lost its competence. As we slowly approach the "despair" phase, already the MSM has begun with articles about predatory lending practices and homedebtor "victims". How many of those "victims" would have made better decisions, had the MSM been doing its job and informing the public, rather than producing 1000s of articles a day giving substance to NAR propaganda?

Notice the use of the word "sales" instead of the word everyone really cares about, and that's "prices". What's going to happen is that sales will pick up because of all those investors (really should be referred to as speculators) will have to unload rather than hold trhough a bad market (housing is slow to turn either way historically speaking.) So as housing goes on sale, sellers will chase a falling market as prices go down (too much supply.) The key item the N.A.R. should be hounded on is when will prices rise? Then we'll truly know the bottom is in.

I hate to sound like and unfeeling prick, but that was not a "tragedy". Much like the Heaven's Gate mass suicide or the Waco, Texas death cult, those were all some of the finest examples of natural selection in the modern era.

And quite frankly, the removal of those imbeciles from our gene pool made the species stronger as a whole.

Here in Northern Virginia lot of the sellers are still drinking the NAR cool-aid and overpricing their homes. If they drop the price it is usually on 20,000 when they should be dropping 100,000-200,000 on their prices. What is it going to take for the sellers to wakeup????????????

I've got a good one for you: I spent the weekend in Newport Coast, CA where I looked at about a dozen available rentals. I picked the one I liked best, contacted the owners, and they said, "It's been on the market for 3 months, and we'd really rather sell it than lease it, so we're going to have one last open house on Sunday and hopefully someone will buy it."

I got the call today that - surprise! - nobody showed up and this house that is listed at $1.2M is now mine to lease for $3,500/month. HAHA!!